HR – It's Time To Gear Up For ‘BIG’ Data!

Big Data has truly evolved into one of the most prominent technological trends of these times, and the sheer applications of this field are nothing to scoff at. The HR function is one particular wing that is on the cusp of a complete overhaul due to the rise of this technological trend.

– The term mentioned above feels quite profound, and this is mainly due to the impact the word “BIG” has on the following word, i.e. Data. For many of us, this term would be rather unfamiliar, but for people who are graduating currently, Big Data has become the new norm. That's right – the new generation of the workforce is what I call ‘digital natives.’ They have been brought up in the age of digital gadgets, and ‘data’ is pretty much like currency to them. I told my six-year-old niece that I am going to speak in CNBC – the Guild’s HR Futures conference, and – to my surprise – she never asked what it means. Instead, she just quietly Googled the term and showed me my picture on their website. To add the icing on the cake, she remarked that “You should probably share a better picture”. But, this was to be expected. After all, this is the information age, and these ‘millennials’ are at the forefront of this development.

Now, I'm guessing many of you are thinking – why am I stressing on the terms Big Data, Digital Natives, and Millennials?

They are all connected since they form a core part of our future workforce.

HR departments across a vast number of organizations have started a digital race, which has been enabled by the explosion of technology’s exponential value generation. Big Data is becoming a prominent aspect of HR functions. Like, for instance, in the earlier days engagement surveys used to happen through the use of paper and pencil. Now, it has moved to an online survey format, and yet data analytics is still reliant on good old Excel and standard templates.

Now suddenly, in the last 2-3 years, engagement has started occurring in real-time. The technology of AI and machine learning, data generation on a day-to-day basis through sentiment analysis software, Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) tools, and culture analysis tools and products – among other technological developments – have been administered to more than millions of employees in an organization. This has helped a large number of HR teams identify what challenges people face in a firm, the mood of employees, and organization health and culture shifts. Analysis of this data helps a particular company improve the overall atmosphere of the organization by providing employees with the enablers they want. The data also provides valuable insights on the current issues when it comes to office culture, behavior and a host of other common problems. Just to clarify, this is all enabled by 'BIG' data. An option to customize it as per your requirement is also available on the menu.

Big data also helps the HR function to conduct a predictive analysis of talent attrition that can help an organization identify the possible talent pool who may not be with the firm in the future. This is made possible by analyzing multiple data points, such as performance analysis, demographic analysis, capability analysis and behavior analysis. At EY, we are supporting clients that provide financial services, who keep struggling with attrition at the bottom rung of the pyramid by creating a framework for Big Data analytics to predict good and bad attrition. This has helped the firms when it comes to real-time workforce planning, and to identify the parameters that cause attrition more accurately than ever before.

Big Data analysis is not a short-term intervention but a ‘journey’; it's about facilitating a continuous cycle of discovery and then re-discovery, that ultimately leads to continual improvement.

For the HR function, Big Data is pretty new as a service. However, the exponential change in the way we work, the need of talent, and other organizational factors are indicating that HR along with many industries will need to leverage Big Data to survive. It’s a 'DVUCAD' world, as Professor Ian C. Woodward from INSEAD beautifully puts it. Its VUCA – disrupted by technology and other aspects along with challenges posed by diversity, is our new world of today, and HR needs to be agile and adapt to this with ease. To enable HR counter, these disruptions and assist organizations to adapt fast, learn faster and build an organizational culture based on the Agile methodology. This is the reason why Big Data will become an essential form of currency.

At EY, there is a conscious effort by the Digital Advisory team to equip every consultant in various business functions with the latest in technology. This is done to help them familiarise with these new-age terms and learn about the applications of different technology trends like Big Data, AI, Machine Learning, IoT, Quantum Computing, and various other trends to optimise effort and maximise throughput. While HR probably may be one of the last adopters of hi-tech tools, I firmly believe that HR can become the most effective adopter of this technology in the future. The most complicated element of any organization is its “people/talent,” unraveling “what people/talent do and why they do it.” This has been a topic of research across top B-schools and consulting firms.With the help of Big Data and other technology advancements, HR can slowly and steadily bring out insights that contribute directly to the top or bottom line of businesses. While the more substantial part of HR world is still in the novice phase, I am confident that sooner or later, everyone will start leveraging technology and Big Data.

Real-time analytics, natural language processing, text analytics and narrative analytics are being applied continuously in talent management nowadays. Vendors like SuccessFactors, Workday, Saba are working with various HR leaders and organizations to keep improvising it. The essential factor for HR is not just run up to the market and pick up any system, but to understand the business needs accurately, leverage the right technology and partner efficiently to create a competitive advantage for your business. This indicates a shift from a ‘plain automation’ to a ‘productivity tracking’ mindset, and this is just not possible without HR being able to embrace Big Data and work with it meaningfully. So, HR needs to move away from the cost center image and try creating avenues to become a profit center. For this to happen, HR needs to be more collaborative, embrace advanced technology and prepare the organization to transit from one state to the other in a smooth fashion.

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